It’s pretty obvious why Stardock wont give refunds on beta’s; they have stated all along that their betas are horrible and not to expect the final product to resemble the betas builds, which would mean most people will ask for their money back. The system is designed to discourage people from buying the game just to try it out. They are looking for player input from testers that have a vested interest in the game not lookyloos.
Is the Beta we are testing “too rough for release” or is it the internal build that is closer to the release build? I think it has been pointed out the way the Beta is operating and it is not the same as others. The internal build is further along, we are getting a different version with specific weaknesses to work on that are relatively easy to change without having to do major alterations. So that list reflects the items that are being knocked off and/or improved in the next few weeks with other stuff we are not seeing already included that is functioning as intended in the internal build and will add to the fun once released.
Or that is how I understand it.
KevinC
1583
Woo! Beta 3C is out tonight, folks. Changelog is here. Looks like some much-needed fixes.
I had brought up the point of pre-orders for Elemental a while back in this thread when I was looking at doing the same, but without interest in the beta (only because of time, really, but also because I don’t like to be spoiled on a game). I ended up not pre-ordering based on that. However, I still think they should have had two different lines of pre-ordering: one for those who want to help with the beta (and will accept that they can’t back out of the purchase) and those that don’t (but want the option of backing out leading up to release). From a business standpoint, I’m not sure why the latter option was never offered.
Still, Elemental is on my watching-closely list, pre-order or not. I’m definitely interested in seeing how it comes together in this last month or so.
Nice list of changes. Should be fun to check them out, especially the tactical combat part.
Will be interesting to see what the mod beta is like.
The fact that you can now harvest all resources from the start seems really wrong if you consider that all of your technological research is supposed to be rediscovering lost knowledge. It’s made even worse by the fact that you are researching things that you can already do.
They also really need to get special abilities attached to items. The medical pack should give my unit a healing ability rather than giving him more health. Mounted units should be able to attack and then move, in addition to increased movement.
There also really needs to be a limit to spellcasting other than the mana. My sovereign(who is already overpowered) can go into combat and just spam whatever direct damage spell he has on the first turn, limited only by mana. I’d like to see the number of casts per turn to be tied to some sort of stat.
Master of Magic had a mana pool, and a caster rating. You could cast whichever was lower in the tactical map.
Mitya
1588
My understanding of the fiction is that you have basic knowledge, essentially as much as an early middle age kingdom minus magic. So mining, chopping wood, farming, all of that is well within the range of what you should be able to do. What the later techs do, at least from what I’ve played of the beta (which admittedly isn’t much, trying to hold off for retail) is improve on that knowledge, as well as give you access to some of the powerful magic spaces. Your character is said to have discovered some basic magic, so it makes sense that at the beginning you can access some lower level magic zones, but then the later techs improve on that. I don’t see any problem with being able to access all of the non-magic zones at the start of the game, but your production should be gimped up until you really improve on the related technology.
As I said though, I haven’t really played all that much of the beta, so by all means correct anything I’m off on.
The resources on the map get you started. But you need the city improvements to really ramp up those resources since the improvements tend to be multipliers on those resources.
Incidentally, a lot of the issues I posted about were addressed in Beta 3C. There’s nothing in the list I posted that are technically hard to do (i.e. none of them would require a single engineering week to resolve).
But my issues with the game are issues that need to be addressed before release if it’s going to be (IMO) commercially successful.
Make unique loss conditions for each faction.
You’re welcome ;).
arakyd
1592
I’m sure I would be, but personally I’m more impressed by what comes together when that isn’t necessary.
It’s an interesting to read about Elemental and contrast it with stuff written by the guys who were developing Stars! Supernova Genesis (SSG). They interacted with the community and designed for modders too, but it’s clear that they were thinking deeply about all aspects of gameplay long before they even released an alpha.
It seems like that would be the no-brainer way to do things, but it might actually be the exception rather than the rule. From one of those SSG developers posting in a rec.games.computer.stars thread:
You can read more of that thread to see how much time he’s put into thinking through the game mechanics for a game he’s writing in his spare time (or was in 2005), before he even finished the engine or decided on how he was going to draw to the screen.
I’ve been thinking about trying to make a living as an indie game developer, but the more I look into it the more obvious it becomes that the market for the sorts of games I want to play and would be interested in writing is very, very small.
3c definitely feels much more alive. The AI is out and about doing things (and leveling), there are more and bigger (giant spiders… shudder…) monsters to be found as well.
Had the AI’s declare war on each other and one be defeated. I ended up being good friends with everyone, so haven’t been attacked myself yet.
Only played one game so far. Didn’t see any NPC’s I could recruit. All of them were tagged as creature-adventurers of various levels.
Would really like a pop-up for targetable enchantments. Right now if you want to put a spell on an ally, you have to move them out of the group. Otherwise the enchantment just hits the caster. Although… come to think of it, I may not have actually tried that in 3c.
Tactical combat is coming along with the counter attacks and changes to movement costs/etc. Haven’t spent as much time on tactical combat due to not receiving any loot for them. Do get xp though.
The various summoning spells seem to work correctly now. Had a stone giant, fire giant, wisp, minor earth elemental, minor fire elemental, and a bear in my group.
Curious about the familars. The flavor text implies that they grow in some way, but, they don’t gain xp and you can’t equip them at the moment.
Really miss the ability to craft magic items/weapons/armor for heroes and units. No mithril slingers or such yet.
All in all a lot of changes for the better from 3b.
KevinC
1594
Agreed. And those were changes made from 3B which was released… what… 2:30AM on Saturday morning, and here it is Monday? That’s why I’m not worried the sky is falling [yet :)] that they only have a month left to go. The game is coming together extremely fast.
That’s not to say there’s not an enormous amount of work to do and obviously Stardock is working around the clock, but if they can keep up this pace I think Elemental has the potential to be a solid game at release. We’ll see on the 24th!
For a recent game that got flavour text right - Solium Infernum.
Another update. Bug fixes for the road crash issue and not being able to build after loading a game.
Noticed that it appear we actually get loot for tactical combats now! The loot is actually displayed on the main results screen instead of its own tab.
As fallen (magnar I believe), confused on the skaethling pits. Out of three cities, only one can build them. That was also the city where the initial point that I wanted to build a city with a pioneer got the message ‘must build on an empty tile’. Which was odd because the tile did not display anything on it.
Armies tech and Team tech for the fallen still do not work. Training techs for fallen (at least for magnar) do not work.
Also had a patch of wildflowers that displayed as a metal deposit on that map.
When I researched summoning, I did not appear to get any new spells. Refined enchantment was the same way, although I’m not sure if that is because the tech description is ambiguous, or if you really are supposed to get access to more spells from it.
On the UI front: Is there anywhere to see all of a sovereign’s stats at once? Other than the level up screen? Also, anyway in combat to see what effects are on a unit?
Getting the feeling that once the AI is smarter, having spell immunities of various types on important units is going to be critical. Otherwise the ‘attacker always goes first’ is going to result in insta-dead sovereigns and champions. At the moment you never want to be the one attacked. Of course abilities may influence this as well. Probably not going to do a whole lot of good to throw a fireball at a fire elemental for instance.
Cubit
1599
I hope you guys buying at retail have internet to update your game, because Brad has confirmed that the version of the game sold in the retail box on shelves will be pre-beta 4.
However, nowadays, we refer to the RTM version and the release version. This sort of thing started a few years ago when digital updates became more common. This has had a significant benefit to gamers but it comes with some caveats as well. The RTM version meant that the "first” gold date could be moved back which makes manufacturing vastly cheaper. Of course, it means the RTM version is now 20 days before street date rather than 15 days. The net benefit for consumers is that games have continued to get cheaper when adjusting for inflation partially because manufacturing has gotten cheaper. I think our boxes are made in Mexico, our CDs in Canada, etc. To be honest, I have no idea where all the various pieces are made but it’s all over the place now.
Now, the RTM version for Stardock has a bit more significance to us because our RTM version does not force the user to update on day 0. That’s because we don’t have any copy protection on our RTM version and don’t assume the player has an Internet connection. Of course, it also means that the RTM version has to be very solid which, during every crunch time results in some headaches.
Hence, one split of the code tree goes on to become the RTM (RTM v1.0) version and the other goes on to be Beta 4 and then eventually the v1.0 version that will be available to digital downloads and anyone who updates. Obviously, an extra 20 business days can make a big difference and that’s why you should always update your game if you buy it at retail. It’s not just about bugs, often times, there’s just ideas that come up once the team gets “in the zone”.
http://forums.elementalgame.com/388932
